Explore opportunities under government’s social intervention programmes – Minister

Professor Kwesi Yankah, the Minister of State in-charge of Tertiary Education at the weekend advised university graduates to explore opportunities under the government’s social intervention programmes to fetch jobs for themselves.

He said the One-District-One-Factory (1D1F) policy, planting for Food and Jobs (PfFJs) programmes and the National Entrepreneurial and Innovation Programmes had been crafted to facilitate setting up of new businesses, thus the need for graduates to capitalize on that.

Prof Yankah, gave the advice in a speech read for him at the 11th congregation ceremony of the Sunyani Technical University (STU) in Sunyani, which saw the graduation of 1,422 students.

The students were presented with various degrees and certificates including Bachelor of Technology, Higher National Diploma and other Diplomas in Engineering, Applied Science and Technology as well as Business and Management Studies.

Prof Yankah tasked the graduates to partner each other and develop new business models so that they would be able to attract financial support set aside by the government to help young entrepreneurs to establish their own businesses.

“As whether you will become a job seeker or a successful entrepreneur depends largely on the individual and so I would encourage you to constantly think outside the box and consider ways of riding on the back of the numerous opportunities presented by both government and the private sector to make a difference”, he said.

Prof Yankah observed that the implementation of the Free Senor High School programme would lead to an increase in student enrolment into the tertiary institutions in 2021/2022 academic year, an indication that universities in Ghana, especially technical universities required additional facilities to accommodate this expected large.

He said government was aware of the infrastructural challenges facing technical universities in the country saying steps were being taken to address such challenges.

To this end, he the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) was putting in place special arrangements to raise funds to complete all on-going GETFUND projects across the country.

Additionally, the government had requested technical universities equipment needs for two departments of each institution to be submitted to the Ministry of Education for funding, and had also made it a priority to continue to retool all technical universities to ensure that they were able to fulfil their mandate of providing hand-on skill training of their students for industry.

He commended the STU for its achievement over the years, and hoped that relevant institutions would speed up the processes that would allow technical universities to roll out their programmes.

Prof Kwadwo Adinkrah-Appiah, the interim Vice Chancellor of the STU, said the university had put in place measures to introduce new programmes that would drive the development of the country.

He said faculty heads had been charged to develop innovative programmes that would attract applicants to make the STU as university of choice and also contribute significantly to Ghana’s industrialization agenda.

In line with this the university has submitted a number of four-year B-Tech programmes to the National Accreditation Board and the National Council for Tertiary Education for accreditation.

Prof Adinkrah-Appiah appealed to the GETFUND to release funds for the completion of the Science Park project to enable the university solved the acute office accommodation challenges facing staff and faculty.